Preparing meals for one or two people can be easy and fun

Preparing a meal for a family or guests often brings a sense of accomplishment, but making a dinner you’ll be eating alone can seem like a big effort with small reward. It doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming to cook delicious, healthy meals.

If you’re like most people, you’re not interested in making a career out of meal planning and preparation — and you don’t have to if you invest a little time up front to organize and prepare. Take a few minutes each week to decide what you want to eat during the coming week.

Here are some ideas to make cooking for one or two easy and fun.

■ Stir-fry prechopped vegetables from a market’s produce section and serve with rice and beans.

■ If you have a slow cooker, put diced chicken, vegetables, liquid and spices into it in the morning and come home to ready-to-eat stew.

■ Make super spuds by topping them with nonfat yogurt, barbecue sauce, low-fat cottage cheese and chives, sautéed onions and vegetables or chili.

■ When making an oven meal, bake potatoes, muffins or rice at the same time and freeze for later use. Heat in a microwave, toaster oven or oven for a quick meal accompaniment.

■ Prepare a week’s supply of sandwiches and freeze them. Peanut butter, chicken, turkey, ham and low-fat cheese make good fillings. Avoid using very moist fillings with mayonnaise or salad dressing which separate when frozen (you can add these when you eat the sandwich). Use the frozen sandwiches within two weeks.

■ Make a favorite family-size casserole, line several one-portion casserole dishes with foil, fill with the casserole, cover with foil and place in the freezer. When it is frozen solid, lift the wrapped food from the dish and return food to freezer. When you are ready to heat the casserole, just place the foil container in the dish again and heat.

If you’d like to learn more about cooking for one or two, plan to attend PrimeTime Health’s Live Well program on Wednesday, May 21, from 4 to 8 p.m. at Lackawanna College. Penn State Extension will present one of the wellness sessions on this topic as part of this educational evening designed for people 55 and older. The program is free and includes a light dinner and door prizes.

For more information or to register for the program, call the Voluntary Action Center at 570-347-5616 by Friday.

KAREN THOMAS is a family and consumer sciences educator for Penn State Extension in Lackawanna County.

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